Despite the revelations provided by Edward Snowden about the scope and illegality of the U.S. government's mass surveillance programs, the Intelligence Community's power to fight back remains potent -- especially when its ostensible watchdogs are its biggest supporters and apologists.

The problem in California isn't environmental safeguards. It isn't a dearth of storage capacity. It's a lack of rain. Sacrificing the Bay-Delta ecosystem and building more canals and reservoirs won't usher in the rain clouds or create more water.

It seems to be the consensus among sane individuals that if the United States defaults on its debt, the result would be somewhere between calamitous and apocalyptic. It's the sort of thing that I would recommend avoiding at all costs, but Representative Devin Nunes from California apparently doesn't feel that way. In fact, it seems as if he believes that the "period of crisis" catastrophe provides is just the prescription our log-jammed legislative process needs to start functioning again.

Lately, some courageous career politicians like Newt Gingrich, John Boehner and Charley Rangel have bravely come forward to reveal a startling fact about the problems with our democracy -- It's not their fault!

On the House floor Sunday, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes decried health care reform, warning darkly of the awakening of the "ghost of communist dictators," and urging the House to reject "totalitarianism."

My feeling is that listening to the Republicans' rhetoric between now and November will be like watching someone continue to blow up an already too-inflated balloon as we cringe and wait for it to pop.